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Secrets of the Mind

A Tale of Discovery and Mistaken Identity

  • Book
  • © 1999

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Authors:
  1. A. G. Cairns-Smith
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Table of contents (15 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-7
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  2. Open Secrets

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 9-10
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    2. Doing as we like

      • A. G. Cairns-Smith
      Pages 11-21

    3. The two of me

      • A. G. Cairns-Smith
      Pages 23-36

    4. Qualia en croûte

      • A. G. Cairns-Smith
      Pages 37-52

  3. An Ominous Secret

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 53-54
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    2. It’s a funny old world

      • A. G. Cairns-Smith
      Pages 55-60

    3. The light of evolution

      • A. G. Cairns-Smith
      Pages 61-70

    4. Straight talk, double talk, fast talk

      • A. G. Cairns-Smith
      Pages 71-79

  4. Secrets Unfolding

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 81-82
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    2. How might brains have feelings?

      • A. G. Cairns-Smith
      Pages 83-92

    3. Switches

      • A. G. Cairns-Smith
      Pages 93-104

    4. Arrows and Desires

      • A. G. Cairns-Smith
      Pages 105-114

    5. Humpty Dumpty

      • A. G. Cairns-Smith
      Pages 115-125

    6. Together again

      • A. G. Cairns-Smith
      Pages 127-136

  5. The Secret Agent

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 137-138
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    2. Why a phenomenal world?

      • A. G. Cairns-Smith
      Pages 139-151

    3. A working image

      • A. G. Cairns-Smith
      Pages 153-159

    4. A strange device

      • A. G. Cairns-Smith
      Pages 161-167

    5. The fabrics of the world

      • A. G. Cairns-Smith
      Pages 169-180
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Keywords

About this book

How can we reconcile Shakespeare's account of human behavior and that of modern brain science? That's the central question addressed by the noted Glasgow chemist A.G. Cairns-Smith in this provocative, witty, and highly accessible discussion of conscious awareness, free will, and science. Written in a conversational style, Secrets of the Mind is not only a splendid introduction for the general reader to the central questions of consciousness and brain science, but a contribution to answering some of them. In the author's view, our feelings and sensations are not simply alternative descriptions of neural events but have themselves evolved and have physical effects in the brain as well as physical causes. In Secrets of the Mind we arrive at a vision of the world as it may come to be seen by a future science. Sand, sea water, air, and the atoms from which such materials are made are now well understood by science. These elements of our world, physicists and chemists tell us, are different forms of quantum energy. But what of our personal feelings, our sensations and emotions? Science tells us that these too must be forms of quantum energy if they evolved. But science is only beginning to explain how.

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Secrets of the Mind

  • Book Subtitle: A Tale of Discovery and Mistaken Identity

  • Authors: A. G. Cairns-Smith

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-1510-3

  • Publisher: Copernicus New York, NY

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

  • Copyright Information: Springer Science+Business Media New York 1999

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-0-387-98692-0Published: 13 August 1999

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-1-4612-7173-4Published: 17 October 2012

  • eBook ISBN: 978-1-4612-1510-3Published: 06 December 2012

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XIII, 230

  • Topics: Philosophy of Mind, Popular Science in Psychology, Neurosciences

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